Sam Williams

Super supporter Mags Smart

19 December 2013

Mags Smart’s son Ruari lived for less than a year. He died from pneumococcal meningitis on 24 November 2012 aged just 207 days. Since then Mags (pictured centre) has devoted herself to fundraising in Wexford and raising awareness of the disease for Meningitis Research Foundation – raising an amazing €11,038 in memory of her baby boy.

The majority of Mag's fundraising took place around World Meningitis Day on 24 April 2013 when she engaged the support of numerous local businesses and members of the community in a wide range of activities including sponsored silence days in playschools, street collections, raffles, a fancy dress sponsored walk, a trade mill fundraiser, the Wexford Half Marathon, cake sales and coffee mornings. Mags also sold pin badges of the charity’s fundraising mascot Marvin, face to face and via Spescavers and Sam McCauleys. She also agreed to use her story on a fundraising text service. This is still active and people can support the charity by texting ‘MenB’ to 50300. Each message costs €2 and 100% of this donation is going to continue our vital work in Ireland.

In addition, Mags acted as a spokesperson during Meningitis Research Foundation’s Parliamentary Briefing in Leinster House in June and was a media case study during the charity’s Meningitis Awareness Week in September with her story appearing nationally in both the print and broadcast media.

“It’s been a busy and very challenging year but I wanted to turn my negative energy into something positive, and thanks to the amazing support off the people in Wexford I have achieved that. I really couldn’t have done all these things, and raised over €11,000 without them.”